Ukraine calls for faster weapons supplies
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has called on Ukraine’s allies to speed up the supply of new weaponry to help his forces overcome Russia’s invasion.
The Ukrainian president said time should be used as a weapon in his Sunday night address.
The speed of supply has been and will be one of the key factors in this war.
Russia hopes to drag out the war, to exhaust our forces. So we have to make time our weapon.
We must speed up the events, speed up the supply and opening of new necessary weaponry options for Ukraine.”
Zelenskiy also noted the “significant defence results” in military aid support in the past week from the United States, Germany, Poland, Canada, Belgium, Norway and Italy.
“We have to make the next week no less powerful for our defence,” he added.
Addressing the situation on the battlefield, Zelenskiy described the situation as “very tough”.
“Bakhmut, Vuhledar and other areas in the Donetsk region are under constant Russian attacks. There are constant attempts to break through our defence,” he said.
“The enemy … maintains a high intensity of attacks.”
Key events
Summary of the day so far …
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Russian shelling of residential areas in Ukraine’s southern city of Kherson left at least three people dead and 10 injured, local authorities said. The Kherson regional military administration said on its Telegram channel that Russian forces targeted a hospital, school, bus station, post office, bank and residential buildings in a strike on Sunday.
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A missile hit an apartment building in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, killing one person and injuring three others, according to the regional governor. Oleh Synehubov said the missile struck the city centre on Sunday, and that an elderly woman’s body had been pulled from the rubble. He said 15 residents of the building were evacuated immediately after the explosion, and will be provided with temporary accommodation.
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Ukraine’s military and Russia’s Wagner private military group are both claiming to have control in the area of Blahodatne, eastern Donetsk region. “Units of Ukraine’s defence forces repelled the attacks of the occupiers in the areas of … Blahodatne … in the Donetsk region,” Ukraine’s military reported, adding its forces also repelled attacks in 13 other settlements in the Donetsk region. Wagner, designated by the US as a transnational criminal organisation, said on the Telegram messaging app on Saturday that its units had taken control of Blahodatne.
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The leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), Denis Pushilin, has said that pro-Russian forces are continuing to make advances in Vuhledar.
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President Tayyip Erdoğan signalled that Turkey may agree to Finland joining Nato without Sweden, amid growing tensions with Stockholm. “We may deliver Finland a different message [on their Nato application] and Sweden would be shocked when they see our message. But Finland should not make the same mistake Sweden did,” Erdoğan said in a televised speech aired on Sunday. Sweden and Finland applied last year to join Nato and need all member countries’ approval to join. Turkey and Hungary are holding out.
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Volodymyr Zelenskiy has stepped up his campaign to keep Russian athletes out of the 2024 Paris Games. Ukraine’s president said he had sent a letter to Emmanuel Macron, and that allowing Russia to compete would be tantamount to showing that “terror is somehow acceptable”.
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The Kremlin said on Monday that former British prime minister Boris Johnson was lying when he said Putin had threatened him with a missile strike during a phone call in the run-up to the invasion of Ukraine. Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters that what Johnson said was not true, or “more precisely, a lie”. Johnson, who has repeatedly been accused of dishonesty during his political career, was speaking to the BBC for a documentary, and said the Russian leader had threatened him with a missile strike that would “only take a minute”.
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Authorities in Slovenia have apprehended two alleged Russian spies who used an agency dealing in real estate and antiques as a front for their activities, local media reported on Monday.
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Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said it cannot be ruled out that Poland and the Baltic states may break off diplomatic relations with the Russian Federation entirely.
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Ukrainian prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, has told the Politico website that he wants the country to join the European Union within two years.
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Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of the Belgorod region in Russia, has said that shelling of Bezliudovka from Ukraine had injured two people.
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Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, has urged South Korea to increase military support to Ukraine, suggesting it reconsider its policy of not exporting weapons to countries in conflict.
That is it from me, Martin Belam, for now. I will be back later. Léonie Chao-Fong will be with you for the next few hours.
Ukraine’s state broadcaster Suspilne has reported on Telegram that its correspondents in Kherson have heard explosions.
My colleague Dan Sabbagh is in Kyiv, which he describes as “beautiful and unbowed”.
The Kremlin said on Monday that former British prime minister Boris Johnson was lying when he said President Vladimir Putin had threatened him with a missile strike during a phone call in the run-up to the invasion of Ukraine.
Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters that what Johnson said was not true, or “more precisely, a lie”.
Johnson, who has repeatedly been accused of dishonesty during his political career, was speaking to the BBC for a documentary, and said the Russian leader had threatened him with a missile strike that would “only take a minute”.
Ukrainian officials continue to apply pressure on the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which is reportedly exploring ways that Russian and Belarussian athletes could compete at the Paris 2024 Games under neutral flags.
This morning, foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba has posted to Twitter to say:
Russia won 71 medals in Tokyo Olympics. 45 of them were won by athletes who are also members of the Central Sports Club of the Russian Army. The army that commits atrocities, kills, rapes, and loots. This is whom the ignorant IOC wants to put under white flag allowing to compete.
In 2020, Russian athletes competed in Tokyo not under the national flag but as a team representing the “Russian Olympic Committee” as a result of Russia’s worldwide sports ban for a state-sponsored doping cover-up.
Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, states that the number of injured overnight in the Kherson has increased to ten. It posted to its telegram channel:
As of the morning of 30 January, the number of injured people as a result of yesterday’s shelling by Russian troops increased to ten, the city council reports.
Slovenian authorities have apprehended two alleged Russian spies who used an agency dealing in real estate and antiques as a front for their activities, local media reported on Monday.
According to media outlets, the two “foreign citizens” were arrested in December and remain in custody as the prosecutors continue their investigation into espionage allegations.
The two are suspected of “spying for a foreign intelligence agency and certifying false content in official documents,” reports said.
Associated Press note that if found guilty, the suspects face in total up to eight years in prison. The suspects have also been active abroad, with one of the two holding Argentinian citizenship, according to the reports.
Russia’s foreign ministry has published a transcript of a lengthy Q&A with the foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, in which he says that Russia anticipates that Poland and the Baltic states may cut off diplomatic ties altogether. In recent weeks a series of tit-for-tat moves have seen Russia and its Baltic neighbours downgrade their diplomatic relations. In the statement, Lavrov says:
Poland and the Baltic countries are states where a frenzied Russophobic campaign has been unfolding for a long time and which are trying to be cooperators of any anti-Russian undertakings of the west. Recently, bilateral relations with these countries have degraded catastrophically, interaction with them in all areas has been frozen and practically reduced to zero.
But we are not in favour of breaking diplomatic relations. Even in the most difficult situation, it is necessary to maintain channels for dialogue, resolving issues of our fellow citizens and compatriots. It cannot be ruled out that, having entered into an anti-Russian rage, these countries will decide to completely break off contacts with us. If this happens, then the responsibility for this step and its consequences will fall entirely on the leadership of these states. We intend to firmly defend our national interests, and opponents must understand that their actions will have long-term consequences.
Lavrov also set out what he said were Russia’s diplomatic aims for 2023, with the statement reading:
Russian diplomacy will continue to adhere to the basic principles of our country’s foreign policy activities, such as independence, multi-vector approach, respect for international law, reliance on national interests, and openness to mutually beneficial cooperation. We will continue to fight for truth and justice in international affairs, against the rudiments of neo-colonialism and the hegemonic ambitions of the United States and its satellites, and the notorious “order based on incomprehensibly invented rules” aggressively promoted by them. Any attempt to harm Russia and its allies will be resolutely rebuffed.
Maksym Kozytskyi, the governor of Lviv, has reported on Telegram that the region went without air alerts during the last 24 hours. He posted that “66 forced migrants arrived in our region by two evacuation trains during the day” and that 545 people departed Ukraine for the safety of Przemyśl in Poland on three trains via his western region.
The UK government should reverse “swathing cuts” to the army because its equipment has become “obsolete” and we are at “war in Europe”, the chairman of the defence select committee in the British parliament has said.
PA Media reports that Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood told Sky News: “The army is in a dire state. Our army is simply too small, we have cut down by 10,000 troops.
“I do hope the defence review will look at these issues and reverse some of the swathing cuts that were made a couple of years ago. It is up to the Treasury and Number 10 to recognise the world is changing – we are now at war in Europe, we need to move to a war footing.”